Volvo: Pure electric cars not viable... yet

Swedish brand rules out pure electric vehicles but foreshadows other new technologies.

Volvo: Pure electric cars not viable... yet

21 October 2015Sam Hall

Volvo says pure electric cars will not be viable as mass production devices for at least the next five or six years due to battery expenses and range limitations.

The Swedish car maker instead believes its existing plug-in hybrid technology – combining an electric motor with a traditional combustion engine that can act as a on-board generator – is the answer to minimising global emission and fuel consumption in new cars.

Speaking at the launch of the all-new XC90, Volvo's senior vice president of research and development, Peter Mertens, said fully electric vehicles such as Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i-MiEV weren't completely suitable for today's market.

"We are focussing on plug-in hybrid technology for the time being," he said. "We don't believe in full electric vehicles that broader customers will look for, but that may change as batteries get cheaper and when there is new infrastructure available around the world.

"We say for the next five or six years minimum, plug-in hybrids is the right answer – there are no range problems, you can charge your battery while driving and with that you have a range which is really huge."

The major proponent for Volvo's hybrid ambitions is the all-new XC90, which includes a 'twin-engined' T8 model. It harnesses the power of a supercharged and turbocharged petrol engine to drive the front wheels, and a 60kW electric motor to drive the rear wheels. All up the flagship engine produces up to 300kW, Volvo says, as well as 640Nm, allowing a sprint time of less than 7.0 seconds and a battery-only range of 40km.

"When you're commuting, you use your combustion engine to re-charge your battery and when you reach the city limits you revert to electric energy and you have 40km to 50km of electric driving," Mertens said

In addition, Volvo is developing flywheel technology to be available in production hybrid vehicles within the next three years.

Drive sampled the technology in an early prototype car last year. The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) can be used to recover a vehicle's wasted energy under braking. The power is stored in a flywheel which spins up to 60,000rpm and can provide bursts in acceleration for up to eight or nine seconds. Volvo says the technology can deliver fuel savings of up to 25 per cent and adding an additional 60kW in boost.

"Flywheels are still on our agenda and we plan on bringing that technology into production," Mertens said.

"It's very interesting technology - it effectively becomes another battery. There's a lot of interesting ideas on that, but that's something that's we're not close to releasing yet. It's still three years away, but in the automotive business that's very short.

"It is one of the enablers that can give us big improvements, because [small savings] here or there makes a big difference in emissions and fuel use.

"It enables other things on the performance side, and bear with us: in a couple of months we will have some interesting stories on that,"